“Yes.” Marsh’s tough jaw was belligerent. “You were eavesdropping, Ellery? Why?”
“Because I was uneasy about Johnny’s situation, and events have borne it out. I’d like to see the will in your possession.”
Marsh set his glass down on the bar. His jaw had not declared a truce. “Technically, I can refuse—”
“We know what you can do, Mr. Marsh,” the chief said with a twitch of the whiplash. “But up here we aren’t so formal in murder investigations. In my territory, Mr. Marsh, murder opens up a lot of doors. Let’s see Benedict’s will, please.”
The lawyer hesitated. Finally he shrugged. “It’s in my attaché case. In my room. Miss Smith—”
“Never mind,” Inspector Queen said. I’ll get it.”
They had forgotten he was there. He was out and back in the same unobtrusive way. “For the record, Mr. Marsh, I didn’t open it.”
Marsh gave him a queer look. He opened the case and drew out a thick folded document in a parchment slipcase. This he handed to Newby, who drew out the will, riffled through its numerous pages, and passed it to Ellery, who spent rather more time on it.
“I see that the basic will was drawn up a long time ago, Al, with supplementary sections added after each marriage and divorce.”
“That’s right.”
“And according to the additions, the weekly payments to each divorced wife of a thousand dollars stop on Johnny’s death but the will leaves her, if unmarried at such time, a principle sum of a million dollars as a final settlement.”
“Yes.”
“Then each ex-wife,” Ellery said, “had a million dollars’ worth of vested interest in seeing that this will remained in force until Johnny died.”
“That’s a rather funny way to put it, but I suppose so, yes. What’s the point?”
“Oh, come, Al, I know a lawyer of your standing and background doesn’t like to be mixed up in a nastiness like this, but you’re in it and you’d better face up to the fact. What I overheard from the terrace last night, in the light of what subsequently happened, confirms every fear I’ve had. If Johnny’d survived the night, he intended to write a new will today. The new will, he said, while it would continue these ladies’ thousand a week till their remarriage, at his death would cut their settlements from a million to a hundred thousand — a mere ten percent of what they could figure on collecting if he didn’t or wasn’t able to write the new will. And if they contested, he warned them, he wouldn’t leave them a cent. I ask you, Aclass="underline" From Audrey’s, Marcia’s, and Alice’s standpoints, wasn’t it a lucky break that Johnny failed to live through the night?”
Marsh gulped his drink. And the subjects of Ellery’s soliloquy sat so very still they scarcely disturbed the flight of the molecules in their vicinity.
“So the way it looks,” Chief Newby announced in the hush, “You used-to-be-wives of Benedict’s had motive and opportunity — equal motive and opportunity. And, I might add, equal access to the murder weapon.”
“I don’t even know what the weapon was!” Audrey Weston, leaping. “You didn’t tell us. For God’s sake, I couldn’t commit murder. Maybe Alice Tierney could — nurses get used to blood. But it makes me sick...”
“I’ll remember that, Audrey,” Alice said in a hypodermic voice.
“For nine hundred thousand dollars, Miss Weston,” the chief remarked, “most anybody could commit most anything. And oh, yes. Your evening gown was found on the scene of the crime.”
“But I told Mr. Queen yesterday that it was stolen from me!” she wailed. “You found Alice’s gloves and Marcia’s wig up there, too, didn’t he say? Why pick on me?”
“I’m not, Miss Weston. Whatever applies in this case applies to all three of you. So far. I grant you, finding all those articles in Benedict’s room doesn’t add up. But there they were, and juries tend to go not by fancy figuring but by plain facts.”
“There’s a fact in this case none of you knows,” Ellery said. “Dad?”
Inspector Queen stepped forward. “On Thursday night — that was before any of you people came up here — Benedict dropped in on Ellery and me at the guest house. He told us that Marsh was going to write a new will for him over the weekend, but that, wanting to protect himself in the meantime, he’d drawn up the substance of it in his own hand and he wanted us to witness it.”
The old man produced the long envelope Benedict had consigned to his care.
“My son and I watched Benedict sign and date this holograph will, we signed as witnesses, he slipped it into this envelope, and he asked me to keep it for him temporarily.”
“We don’t know what’s in the holograph,” Ellery said “—he didn’t let us read it, or read it to us — but we assume it sets forth the same provisions as the one he intended Al Marsh to put in more formal language today. Under the circumstances, Anse, I believe you have every right to open it here and now.”
The Inspector handed the envelope to Newby, who glanced at Marsh. Marsh shrugged and said, “You’ve made it clear where the local law stands, Chief,” and stepped over to the bar to refill his glass.
“Did Benedict say anything to you about writing out the new will himself in advance of the weekend, Mr. Marsh?” Newby asked.
“Not a word.” Marsh took a he-man swallow and flourished the glass. “Come to think of it, though, he did ask me some questions about phraseology and form in the case of a holograph will. It didn’t occur to me he was seriously asking for himself.”
Newby slit the envelope with his penknife and withdrew the handwritten will. The Queens rubbernecked. As they read, the three men looked increasingly surprised and puzzled.
The chief said abruptly, “You’d best take a look at this, Mr. Marsh.”
Newby waved the crowding ex-wives back and offered the document to Marsh, who handled the paper, his glass, and a smoldering cigaret like a boy learning to juggle. Finally he set glass and cigaret down, and read.
He, too, looked puzzled.
“Read it aloud, Al.” Ellery was watching Audrey, Marcia, and Alice. The trio were craning like giraffes. “Just that pertinent paragraph.”
Marsh frowned. “He revokes all previous wills — the usual thing — and leaves his residuary estate quote ‘to Laura and any children’ unquote. He goes on: ‘If for any reason I am not married to Laura at the time of my death, I bequeath my residuary estate to my only living kin, my first cousin Leslie.’ That’s the gist of it.” The lawyer shrugged. “It’s sloppily drawn, but in my judgment this is a legal will.” He returned it to Newby and retrieved his glass and cigaret.
“Laura,” Marcia muttered. “Who the hell is Laura?”
“It couldn’t be that hatcheck number he’s been seen with lately,” Audrey said. “From what the columns have been spilling, her name is Vincentine Astor.”
Alice said, “He’s never mentioned a Laura to me.”
“Or me,” Audrey complained. “Is it possible that two-legged rat got married secretly before he came up here?”
“No,” Ellery said. “Because in that event he’d probably have written that he was leaving his estate to ‘my wife Laura,’ the common form, rather than simply ‘to Laura.’ If he died before he married her, the phrase ‘my wife Laura’ on a will predating the marriage might well invalidate the document and toss a will case involving millions into the surrogate’s court for years. No, Johnny was anticipating his marriage to Laura — ‘if for any reason I am not married to Laura,’ etcetera, tells us that. Al, do you know who Laura is, or might be?”
“He never mentioned a woman of that name to me.”
“I agree with you, Ellery,” Chief Newby said. “He meant to marry this Laura right off and figured he’d jump the gun by writing her into his interim will beforehand. He protected himself by that ‘if for any reason’ clause. He must have been awfully sure of her.”